Nommos: Llamadas Y Respuestas
Llamadas: Calls Respuestas: Responses
When I nod, you will nod back. You will know I’m here, you will know my name is Chicana.
(Linda) If I were a theme, what would I look like? An American—Hypenated? Is that an assimilation, lost in the identity that is Chicana, Mexicana, Africana? Nope, it is an individuation caused by an adaptation of a tribal self.
I am a multiplicity of culture, like the burrito. A burrito is made of the following from the following places,
Aguacate (Avocado): (Nahuatl, from south Central Mexico)
Lechuga (Lettuce): Egypt (Mother Africa)
Tomate (Tomato): Aztec
Crema y Carne Asada (Cream and Grilled Steak): Africa/Asia
Frijoles de la Olla (Beans from the pot): Peru
Cebolla (Onion): Asia
Tortillas de Harina (Flour tortillas): Spain, Sephardic Jews using flour because corn is not kosher.
I am as multicultural as a burrito, adapted to the American sense of taste (corn vs flour) that comes from my oppressive, colonizing forefathers.
I am middle class (poor, but knowledgeable) with expectations of a place to plant my feet, see the sun, speak to the wrongs and defend the rights I should have, in the land and language of the victor. I am not he, but I am she, with voice and language and rights in my Midwestern land, in a city, in a neighborhood where policemen will look at me and say
WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF SCHOOL?
and I don't respond,
I AM AS MULTICULTURAL AS YOU OFFICER.
Your people landed on a rock 100 years after my people built a university. Your people, built a republic on my back, where I can’t call my self “sister” that you can see me to say, “yes you are my sister because I am multicultural too…I’ve just lost my native way to my American self so I will defend my lack of a hyphen with 50 stars and 13 stripes, say my American name in a battle hymn—America! I am named as whole, as red-blooded, white-skinned, blue-eyed—blond, brunette, tanned, pale, grey-eyed, blue-eyed, amber-eyed…”
WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF SCHOOL?
HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE THAT? WHAT KIND OF NAME IS THAT?
I’M JUST GOING TO CALL YOU…PHYLLIS—Felicitas is too hard to pronounce, EVERYDAY.
Nommos…it’s the Chicana across the room in a room full of gavachas, you spot her, nod slightly, if she returns the nod, you’ve got an ally. Si no hace nada, ya sabes, eh? They put you in this school because it’s for smart kids, but you don’t look like them and they can see that. Will she also turn and be invisible to you, that Chicana across the room you spot who says nothing, and still says nothing four years later, until graduation day.
When you graduate, she will come up to you, apologizing, her very grateful but very poor family shadowing her like an embarrassing albatross—the dead weight of a civilization she carries, unconscious of the cement bonding her to them—and to you. You continue the surreal discourse with the "latina-not"…you want to reach out and poke her—see if she is real, but you don’t—that would make you as awful as all those kids wanting to know about your lunch, if you know swear words, and what exactly is a quincenera.
You realize as you are now engaged in conversation four years too late, that her family believes you to be friends. You know this because you grew up in a movement where every participant spoke two languages, one with their body, the other with their mouths. You learned at a very young age to recognize when those two languages were not in synch. Your family has always taught you the value of your history, because they understood the value of your history. Because your history has value, you know when that history means something to you that is good, not bad and not something to be ashamed of.
My name is Chicana, revolutionary, independent, rooted in ten thousand years of education. My name is Feminist, equal in thought, deed and action as every other human citizen that breathes, speaks, laughs, loves, fights and knows how to make peace, how to live in equal spaces and contribute to the betterment of home, community, self. My name is Chicana Feminist, with blood, sinew, corpuscles, brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, brown and down with raza ready to create community that celebrates language, culture and the adaptation of self in equal parts of performative action and love. In the name of the Guadalupe, the Gloria, and the Walter, Amen
